Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-q99xh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T06:36:14.691Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

‘A new species of mony’: British Exchequer bills, 1701-1711

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 September 2015

Richard A. Kleer
Richard A. Kleer*
Affiliation:
University of Regina
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article studies the relationship between Bank and Treasury during the War of the Spanish Succession. It examines two new series of Exchequer bills implemented in 1707 and 1709. Far from being loans-for-rents contracts, the principal aim was to accommodate war-related pressures on the nation's monetary system by manufacturing a substitute for scarce specie. The article also shows there was a covert struggle within the financial community for access to the specie flows associated with the nation's system of public finance.

Keywords

Exchequer billsmoneybankingfinancial crises

JEL classification

E51: Money Supply • Credit • Money Multipliers E42: Monetary Systems • Standards • Regimes • Government and the Monetary System • Payment Systems H63: Debt • Debt Management • Sovereign Debt E65: Studies of Particular Policy Episodes G21: Banks • Depository Institutions • Micro Finance Institutions • Mortgages H12: Crisis Management G01: Financial Crises
Type
Articles
Information
Financial History Review , Volume 22 , Issue 2 , August 2015 , pp. 179 - 203
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © European Association for Banking and Financial History e.V. 2015 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Sources

BEA. Bank of England Archives, London

ADM7. General ledgers (‘Bank Ledgers’)

G4. Minutes of the Court of Directors (‘Bank Minutes’)

British Mercury

London Gazette

NA. National Archives, Kew, London

T1. Treasury Board Papers and In-Letters

T29. Treasury Board Minutes (‘Treasury Minutes’)

Post Man

References

Baxter, S. (1957). The Development of the Treasury, 1660–1702. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Bonney, R. (2001). France and the first European paper money experiment. French History, 15, pp. 254–72.Google Scholar
[Boyer, A.] (1708). The History of the Reign of Queen Anne, Digested into Annals. Year the Sixth. London: printed for Margaret Coggan.Google Scholar
[Boyer, A.] (1709). The History of the Reign of Queen Anne, Digested into Annals. Year the Seventh. London: printed for M. Coggan.Google Scholar
[Boyer, A.] (1710). The History of the Reign of Queen Anne, Digested into Annals. Year the Eighth. London: printed for T. Ward.Google Scholar
[Broughton, J.] (1705). A Letter to a Member of the Present Honourable House of Commons, Relating to the Credit of Our Government, and of the Nation in General. London: printed by A. R. and sold by J. Nutt.Google Scholar
Broz, J. and Grossman, R. (2004). Paying for privilege: the political economy of Bank of England charters, 1694–1844. Explorations in Economic History, 41, pp. 48–72.Google Scholar
Calomiris, C. and Haber, S. (2014). Fragile by Design: The Political Origins of Banking Crises and Scarce Credit. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Clapham, J. (1958). The Bank of England: A History, vol. 1: 1694–1797. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
[Clement, S.] (1710). A Vindication of the Faults on Both Sides from the Reflections of the ‘Medley’, the ‘Specimen Maker’, and a Pamphlet Entitled ‘Most Faults on One Side‘. London: printed and sold by the booksellers of London and Westminster.Google Scholar
Cox, G. (2015). Marketing sovereign promises: the English model. Journal of Economic History, 75(1), 190–218.Google Scholar
Desan, C. (2014). Making Money: Coin, Currency and the Coming of Capitalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Dickson, P. (1967). The Financial Revolution in England: A Study in the Development of Public Credit, 1688–1756. London and New York: Macmillan and St Martin's Press.Google Scholar
Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons (1803). Journals of the House of Commons, vol. 15: 1705–1708. [London: HMSO].Google Scholar
Great Britain. Public Record Office (1936–52). Calendar of Treasury Books Preserved in the Public Record Office, vols. 18–25 [1703–1711] . London: HMSO.Google Scholar
Great Britain. Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts (1897). The Manuscripts of his Grace the Duke of Portland, Preserved at Wellbeck Abbey, vol. 4. Fifteenth Report, Appendix, Part iv. London: HMSO.Google Scholar
Hill, B. (1971). The change of government and the ‘loss of the City’, 1710–1711. Economic History Review, 24(3), pp. 395–413.Google Scholar
Horsefield, K. (1960). British Monetary Experiments, 1650–1710. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Jones, D. (1988). War and Economy in the Age of William III and Marlborough. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Lovell, M. (1957). The role of the Bank of England as lender of last resort in the crises of the eighteenth century. Explorations in Entrepreneurial History, 10(1), pp. 8–21.Google Scholar
Luttrell, N. (1857). A Brief Historical Relation of State Affairs from September 1678 to April 1714, vol. 6: [1705–6 to 1714]. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Quinn, S. (2000). Follow the money: political economy and the institutions of public finance in England, 1660-1700 . Mimeo. Fort Worth, Texas: Department of Economics, Texas Christian University.Google Scholar
Rowlands, G. (2012). The Financial Decline of a Great Power: War, Influence, and Money in Louis XIV's France. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
A Scheme for Circulating 1,600,000 l. in Exchequer Bills by the Members of the Bank: but Separate from the Bank in their Politick Capacity [1711]. [London: s.n.]Google Scholar
[Tench, N.]. (1707). A Defence of the Bank of England: or, A Reply to a Late Pamphlet Entitul'd Remarks upon the Bank of England. London: [s.n.].Google Scholar
Wray, R. (2004). Conclusion: the credit money and state money approaches. In Wray, R. (ed.), Credit and State Theories of Money: The Contributions of A. Mitchell Innes. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, pp. 223–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar